Today, my yoga teacher talked to us about beginner’s mind. She encouraged us to treat each yoga pose as if it were the first time we had ever done it. “Start with the basics, build each pose from the foundation up,” she said.
She meant it literally, as when we set up for trikonasana (triangle pose). She meant it figuratively, as a way to set up new projects. So, here are my basics, my foundation. Healers Write, Writers Heal. The connecting thread is my writing process.
The new thing I’ve found this week is yoga nidra, the yoga of rest. I learned about it in a writing newsletter I follow from Nicole Gulotta. She had written about this previously, and I had dismissed it as not useful.
This week, though, I was enjoying a much-needed five-day weekend. Last week had a combination of stressors that threw me off balance, that left me needing some downtime. Nicole is an INFJ like me, so she understands the need for downtime.
What am I learning from yoga nidra?
I already knew about the crucial importance of sleep for staying mentally focused, physically energized, and emotionally equanimous. As I read about the benefits of yoga nidra, I was initially surprised to find out that it helps with creativity.
Yet, as I do more research, I see that yoga nidra guided meditation is specifically meant to bring us to that liminal state between waking and sleeping, a state of deep relaxation while still being conscious. I have solved problems in this state.
I wouldn’t describe myself as strongly intuitive, but while falling asleep, knowledge has come to me. For instance, I heard “Something in the refrigerator needs to be thrown away.” The next day, my husband had put some dead vegetables on the compost pile.
How does that help with writing?
Another time, I was prompted to add my childhood ballet class to a poem about chemotherapy. It made no sense logically, but it made total sense in the poem. I had been shown the connection between two seemingly unconnected things.
This week, my husband and I watched two episodes of Long Strange Trip, a documentary about the Grateful Dead. Part of the narration is done by a biographer who spent many years with the Dead, and who shared in some of their experiments with hallucinogens.
He describes the hallucinatory state as the speeding up of the brain’s ability to make connections. The liminal state between sleeping and waking, then, seems like a safer, more controlled way, a more physiologic way to help the brain make connections.
The experience of yoga nidra
During my first session of yoga nidra, I recognized elements of autohypnosis, a counting down process. On day three, I focused on my breast surgery scar, and I saw a long blue cloud along the horizon which coalesced into a bird that flew over my head. At the end of the week, I will be working with these images to help me find an intention for my writing process.
If you want to sample this guided meditation, the page to sign up is here. Don’t be put off by the description of the class as being for women. Men need rest, too, maybe even more than women. According to Fitbit data, female Fitbit users sleep 25 minutes more per night than male users.